Ever get concerned with student sections dwindling across the nation? Ever wonder WHY this is happening compared to past generations? Check out our newest article here (definitely think it's relevant for Drexel fans too) that addresses the issue head on & let us know what you think.

Curious to hear from folks on these sports boards!

Article: https://wmsportsblog.com/2021/11/23/why-...nger-fans/

what you said at the end about starting when kids are young resonated with me. my son absolutely loves hockey to the point where he'll sit and watch random ahl games on his ipad. not even nhl...but ahl. i think it comes from 2 things...

1. he watches a show on nhl network most mornings that actually shows highlights. i got hooked on sports with sportscenter in the day of dan patrick and keith olbermann (before he went crazy about politics...and i'm a liberal saying that). they showed full highlights and were funny, clever, and interesting. sportscenter is garbage these days and they only focus on the drama that goes on like free agency and guys who want to be traded. espn shows less random sports and more opinion shows with loud mouths.

regional tv networks are almost non-existent. i used to watch all kinds of local games, racing, etc. on some of those channels. nbcsn philly is mostly paid programming or more opinion shows with loud mouths with lame opinions.

2. we actually take him to games. parents my age...well...i don't know what they do. some of them seem too stressed out to spend time with their kids. we had him at a division iii basketball game last night and my son was into it. messiah beat albright by 1 point. he's really starting to learn all the sports we go to because he sees it himself.

so i'm blaming the total sports network for not actually showing sports anymore...and parents for not exposing their kids to this and anything else. if parents do expose their kids...it's often while pressuring them to excel so they can get a college scholarship. that's why i disagree baseball will go away. playing baseball seems to be alive and well and unfortunately so are obnoxious 8 year olds who think they know everything about the game because they're on an all start team at way too young of an age. they also probably have a dad who thinks he knows everything about the game.

by the way...none of them know anything about shohei ohtani or seemed interested in learning about him. another problem is players aren't marketed well anymore and if they are...they get in high speed drunk driving crashes, beat up a woman, or refuse to get vaccinated.

i will caution you that w & m is probably not a great school to use as a measuring stick for lack of interest. i've always thought of it as more of an academic institution as opposed to a school like penn state. drexel is in that same boat too. i'm in the minority in factoring in drexel having at least division 1 basketball when i picked it for college...and i figured being close to all the other philly teams would make up for what we didn't have like football. it's certainly true though that penn state's student section is often late arriving mostly because partying outside is potentially the bigger attraction. sports would probably show up in the upper right of your chart there because it's part of the culture.

(11-24-2021 07:55 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  what you said at the end about starting when kids are young resonated with me. my son absolutely loves hockey to the point where he'll sit and watch random ahl games on his ipad. not even nhl...but ahl. i think it comes from 2 things...

1. he watches a show on nhl network most mornings that actually shows highlights. i got hooked on sports with sportscenter in the day of dan patrick and keith olbermann (before he went crazy about politics...and i'm a liberal saying that). they showed full highlights and were funny, clever, and interesting. sportscenter is garbage these days and they only focus on the drama that goes on like free agency and guys who want to be traded. espn shows less random sports and more opinion shows with loud mouths.

regional tv networks are almost non-existent. i used to watch all kinds of local games, racing, etc. on some of those channels. nbcsn philly is mostly paid programming or more opinion shows with loud mouths with lame opinions.

2. we actually take him to games. parents my age...well...i don't know what they do. some of them seem too stressed out to spend time with their kids. we had him at a division iii basketball game last night and my son was into it. messiah beat albright by 1 point. he's really starting to learn all the sports we go to because he sees it himself.

so i'm blaming the total sports network for not actually showing sports anymore...and parents for not exposing their kids to this and anything else. if parents do expose their kids...it's often while pressuring them to excel so they can get a college scholarship. that's why i disagree baseball will go away. playing baseball seems to be alive and well and unfortunately so are obnoxious 8 year olds who think they know everything about the game because they're on an all start team at way too young of an age. they also probably have a dad who thinks he knows everything about the game.

by the way...none of them know anything about shohei ohtani or seemed interested in learning about him. another problem is players aren't marketed well anymore and if they are...they get in high speed drunk driving crashes, beat up a woman, or refuse to get vaccinated.

i will caution you that w & m is probably not a great school to use as a measuring stick for lack of interest. i've always thought of it as more of an academic institution as opposed to a school like penn state. drexel is in that same boat too. i'm in the minority in factoring in drexel having at least division 1 basketball when i picked it for college...and i figured being close to all the other philly teams would make up for what we didn't have like football. it's certainly true though that penn state's student section is often late arriving mostly because partying outside is potentially the bigger attraction. sports would probably show up in the upper right of your chart there because it's part of the culture.

Love this take and really appreciate the thoughtful response. 100% agree with you that proactively introducing kids to sports while they're young is absolutely key -- either through active participation and/or through bringing them to games.

Interesting point you made on SportsCenter; I'd even take it one step further by saying that kids nowadays, glued to their phones, don't even get exposure to SportsCenter & ESPN (a problem that ESPN is trying to solve). Currently, ESPN is tied to a cable bundle -- and good luck getting Gen Z's and younger (and even Millennials) to pay exorbitant fees to subscribe to cable when streaming services are far cheaper & more attractive for a variety of reasons.

I'd definitely check out two brand-new, emerging sports media outlets in "Overtime" and "Buzzer" -- two digital / social media-first companies that specialize in highlights that cater specifically to Gen Z and below. Even Patrick Mahomes has become a seed investor in Buzzer (that really speaks for itself).

Overtime: https://overtime.tv/about (emphasis on culture & happenings "around" the field of play)
Buzzer: https://www.buzzer.com/home/about (Buzzer's app is especially for highlights)

If your son isn't already following those media outlets across social media (I'd assume Instagram & TikTok), you may want to recommend them to him!

I will also say that while I wrote the article to of course cater to W&M fans, I'm definitely not using W&M as the measuring stick; that's why I mentioned that this issue is occurring even at Alabama (hence the article inclusion / reference to "big time" sports programs having issues like this too).

Again, really appreciate your response & checking out the article!

I've wondered if the ability to follow teams (if you followed teams) that you grew up rooting for has impacted the ability of making the emotional connections to the teams at the school you actually enroll in, at least at our level. In the past you could keep track of your childhood team, but it wasn't as easy to watch every game they played as it is now. So if you wanted to watch a game, you had to go to your school's events and would become emotionally invested in it. Now you can stay emotionally invested in your childhood team so easily that you may not feel the need to attend your own school's events.

I also wonder whether the segregating of the money making athletes in sport specific dorms and palatial training facilities open only to athletes limits the mingling with the general student population that could potentially help curate stronger bonds. This is obviously something that would occur at the big Power 5 schools more so than at our level.

But odds are it's attention spans aren't what they were and there's too much down time during events for commercials and replays. God knows since I started watching RedZone it's become a struggle to get through stand alone NFL games.

I agree with the treatment of athletes on campus has only made the gap bigger. Especially at our level, part of the connection to the team and program is the access you have and interactions you have with players, family, coaches etc. That really tied the whole experience in. The more the players are in their won world away from the population the less they are also tied to he program, which makes transferring that much easier. I am not saying fan interactions is going to stop someone from transferring, but it might make their choice more difficult because they will be more tied to the culture of the program instead of it just being a team

(11-24-2021 05:51 PM)DrachenFire Wrote:  But odds are it's attention spans aren't what they were and there's too much down time during events for commercials and replays. God knows since I started watching RedZone it's become a struggle to get through stand alone NFL games.

You make a really good point about the "natural" stoppages in play for ad spots leading to lessening interest in the overall product -- especially with major pro sports & college sports.

Obviously not sure how feasible it is for sports to do away with ad spots at this stage in the game (would require a complete overhaul of the way these broadcast deals generate revenue) -- but it's certainly possible in the future -- especially if we moved toward more of a subscription-based broadcast system (vs. ad-based system). Would 100% be a better way to keep folks looped in & interested in the sports content (read: the game) itself.

(11-24-2021 05:51 PM)DrachenFire Wrote:  I've wondered if the ability to follow teams (if you followed teams) that you grew up rooting for has impacted the ability of making the emotional connections to the teams at the school you actually enroll in, at least at our level. In the past you could keep track of your childhood team, but it wasn't as easy to watch every game they played as it is now. So if you wanted to watch a game, you had to go to your school's events and would become emotionally invested in it. Now you can stay emotionally invested in your childhood team so easily that you may not feel the need to attend your own school's events.

I also wonder whether the segregating of the money making athletes in sport specific dorms and palatial training facilities open only to athletes limits the mingling with the general student population that could potentially help curate stronger bonds. This is obviously something that would occur at the big Power 5 schools more so than at our level.

But odds are it's attention spans aren't what they were and there's too much down time during events for commercials and replays. God knows since I started watching RedZone it's become a struggle to get through stand alone NFL games.

i go back and forth about whether increased access is good or bad. there's more access to less main stream sports which i think is good. it helps that i can watch drexel games i never could before because i can really get to know the team. i use flo to watch forms of sprint car racing i could never see before. it's gotten me out to see winged sprint cars when they come to our area or go to kutztown for a race because i enjoyed watching those races.

unfortunately the access to mainstream sports has increased...but the quality is down the toilet. for example...i don't want to hear some hot head tell me jalen reagor stinks and should be cut in a competition to describe your anger towards him and the eagles better than everyone else. i want somebody who actually knows football to show me tape of how poorly he runs routes with game tape. i've never liked glen macnow on wip. i like him less after he said he doesn't know what a zone blocking scheme is. that's probably the easiest form of run blocking out there so he clearly knows nothing about football. we've dumbed these sports down so much that they're not interesting and all about the drama.

whether i saw basketball players on campus never made or break whether i cared about the team. efforts by people like dr. exel with the dac pack are a big part of why i'm still around. i'd be curious to ask the people who have disappeared from the message boards a. do they follow the team at all? and b. why or why not? i'm hoping we'll be more worth their time if we keep winning.

The closest contact I had with a Hofstra athlete was meeting a Men's Basketball walk-on once. I rooted for Hofstra as my local school before I attended. I remember when the conference changed names to the America East. I went to my first game as a freshman in 2003. It was a disappointing loss to Stony Brook. Hofstra was down 70-69, missed, fouled Stony Brook, they missed the first of a 1-and-1, and Hofstra missed at the buzzer. Hofstra went 14-15, so they would have been above .500 if they won that game. I don't care if the teams I root for are popular. Did other people here root for the team they root for before they attended, or root for a school they did not attend?

I was always a maryland fan and still am. Didnt stop me from rooting for Drexel as well. But prior to being a student I had minimal knowledge of their athletics and certainly didnt follow them.